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EU is too big for CAP says MEP

MEP Stuart Agnew has criticised the proposed reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy and said the EU 'has become far too big to have a CAP'.

The comments were made as part of a European Parliamentary press conference with fellow members of the Agricultural and Rural Development Committee in Brussels.

“We are looking at countries which have 350 horsepower tractors vs countries that have draft oxen" the MEP said.

Currently, financial problems plaguing the eurozone are stalling proposed changes to the Common Agricultural Policy. Until spending plans are agreed, MEPs are refusing to vote on the reforms.

There are fears in France that the new EU budget could cut the subsidies given to farmers. The Cypriot presidency of the European Union published a document saying "the total level of spending proposed by the Commission... will be revised downwards".

But UKIP MEPs have expressed criticism of the amount that the UK contributes to the EU budget.

"We are looking at a latitude that extends 200 miles north of the Arctic circle, down to the bottom corner of Cyprus. Personally, I don’t think it is viable, particularly with all the different languages involved" Agnew said.

“In the UK we are the second largest net contributor to the budget and it worries me that we have so little control over how that money is spent.”

“I’m very worried that farmers are supposed to be able to change the climate. I think this is utter nonsense. I disagree entirely that CO2 levels have anything to do with the way our climate works. I believe this (the climate) is influenced by solar cycles, lunar cycles, jet streams and ocean currents.

He described renewable energy as a “scam or Ponzi scheme of monumental proportions. Farmers like it when they are paid huge subsidies to have wind turbines or solar panels on their land. Many of them still think that these subsidies come from the taxpayer. Actually, they don’t. They come from electricity consumers, who may well be very poor, individually. So what we are seeing is a reverse of the Robin Hood principle. We are robbing the poor to pay the rich. It is absolutely disgraceful.”